


A Moment Of Mercy

by CaptainCherryCola (AirbornBiohazard)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Ambiguous War, Gen, I'm Just Going To Drop This Here, it just sort of happened, kind of plotless, not sure where this came from
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 07:56:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10612560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirbornBiohazard/pseuds/CaptainCherryCola
Summary: They were on opposing sides of the war; they should have been enemies. They should have been at each other’s throats in an instant. Alfred knew he should be dead, the blood made that obvious enough. The Russian should be finishing him off, not carrying him out of the crossfire...But war and fate take little heed to what ‘should’ be.





	

The air was thick with smoke and snow and gunpowder. Alfred fought desperately to keep the breath in his lungs.

He risked a glance around the wall, gasping and pulling back when a small explosion ricocheted off the stone a few feet away. He really didn’t want to be fighting the Russians. At first it had seemed like his duty to protect his country, his people, but he had found out all too late that he hated war. He was scared of the fighting, and he was even more terrified of dying.

He shook his head to clear his mind. None of that mattered, not really. He had a job to do, and he intended to do it… or die trying.

He looked across the snow bank at the enemy, barely visible in the haze. He turned back to the young man several feet away from him to the left, and called out to him.

“Mattie?”

Mattie  looked back to Alfred and smiled, holding a thumbs-up. “Yeah, I’m still here.”

Alfred nodded to himself, taking deep breaths. As long as his brother was okay, that was what really mattered.

Matthew stared intently over the snow, unshaken by the shouted commands and booms of the fight. Alfred wondered when exactly his shy little brother had grown to be so brave, but he couldn’t remember. He adjusted his grip on the gun in his hands, steeling himself.

Matthew shouted something, snapping him away from his thoughts.

“There’s an opening! I’m going out..”

“W-wait… What?” but Matthew was already moving to find a better position. Alfred followed his brother’s path with his eyes. Matt was trying to be sneaky, ducking down low to the snow and approaching from the side. Alfred squinted, and in a moment of wind that was relatively free of debris, he saw multiple barrels that had previously been invisible trained on Matthew.

The next few seconds passed before Alfred actually knew what was happening.

He leapt from his place, a scream on his lips.

“Mattie!”

In the same instant, gunshots rang out from the whiteness; fire exploded in his side. Suddenly there was snow on his cheek, his limbs felt numb, and he could only see white and red. The one thought that crept through his mind was

 _I guess this is how I die_.

***

Ivan scanned the battlefield, sighing quietly. He didn’t want to be there, he didn’t want to fight the American troops; he felt sorry for them, in fact. They were losing, badly. He was stationed on the edge, shielded by snowbanks and the atrocious weather. The Americans were hiding behind a crumbling wall a ways away.

No one had actually been shot in a long time. No one could see well enough to hit a target if they tried. Ivan had shot at the snow a few times, not wanting to hurt anyone but not wanting to look like a coward either.

He was about to fire into the empty area in front of him, but he froze when he saw a figure crawl through the snow drift. He thought of closing his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see them get killed, but something in him kept them open. For half a second after the figure appeared, the air was almost clear. He saw behind the man another soldier, whose eyes were so wide Ivan could almost swear he saw the crystalline blue in them. Before he could blink, the second man let out a scream and flung himself in front of his comrade, exactly as Ivan’s companions let fire loose on them. The blue-eyed soldier was struck in the side, letting out a pained cry and falling into the snow. The first was nowhere to be seen; Ivan hoped he’d gotten away.

He tried to stay where he was, knowing the poor man would be dead soon if he wasn’t already. He looked back up, however, and saw through flying ice the bright red flag of the wounded man’s life, painting itself into the snow. His heart wrenched in his chest to know that the man had died protecting someone, somebody that could’ve been close to him; a friend, maybe family. Somehow the soldier was close enough that Ivan could hear his moaning, or perhaps it was his own mind betraying him. Eventually he couldn’t stand it any longer, and threw down his gun. He wasn’t entirely sure what odd force compelled him to do it. He was hardly aware of it until it was too late.

Against his better judgement, Ivan stood and began trudging through the endless white. Almost immediately the guns on the Russian side stopped firing; he heard shouts from behind him.

“Braginsky! What the hell are you doing?”

“You’ll get yourself killed!”

“Braginsky!”

Ivan ignored them and continued, noticing that in the confusion, the nearby Americans had stopped firing as well. He soon made it to where the soldier was lying, crying out softly. Ivan bent over and scooped the smaller man up in his arms, then turned around and carried him back towards the safety of the snow bank.

***

Alfred felt strong arms around him, lifting him up. He could barely see, but he faintly recognized the Russian soldier’s emblazoned coat. He puzzled fuzzily at the stranger’s actions. They were on opposing sides of the war; they should have been enemies. They should have been at each other’s throats in an instant. Alfred knew he should be dead, the blood made that obvious enough. The Russian should be finishing him off, not carrying him out of the crossfire.

“Who… who are you? ...W-what are you- ahh,” Alfred inhaled sharply at the pain that bloomed from his side when he tried to speak. He instinctively curled up a bit, closer to the warm Russian. _He probably doesn’t speak English anyways,_ he thought.

The mysterious man reached the Russian side of the field. He found another part of the destroyed wall, and gently set Alfred down against it. He glared at his companions, daring them to say anything against him. They didn’t. The gunfire picked back up between the soldiers, slowly but surely.

“My name is Ivan,” he said in heavily accented English. “I want to help you, okay?”

Alfred winced at the movement. Part of him thought he actually _was_ dead.

Ivan dropped to his knees in front of Alfred, shifting him to look closer at his wound. The American hissed at the hands so close to his injury, but soon gave up. Ivan reached around his neck, tugging off the heavy wool scarf from around it. He pressed it to Alfred’s side, trying to stop the bleeding.

“Hold that,” he instructed. Alfred numbly held the now red-stained wool to himself, panting with exhaustion from the pain. Ivan took off his heavy coat next, draping it around Alfred’s shoulders.

He unconsciously sank into the warmth, curling up further despite the discomfort it caused him.

After a moment or two, the adrenaline faded from his mind and his body realized that it was, in fact, not dead. He cried out loudly, hot tears pouring from his eyes at the new sense of pain erupting from his abdomen. Ivan immediately wrapped his arms around the smaller man, holding him tightly. Alfred shoved his face deep into the Russian’s chest, gasping and sobbing against his own will.

Ivan quickly removed his enemy’s helmet, tossing it aside and moving a hand to the back of Alfred’s head, stroking his bright blonde hair. “Shh…” he murmured, protectively holding him close. He knew there was nothing he could do but try to give the other man a few moments of peace, of security. Just for a little while.

Alfred’s hand held a fistful of his rescuer’s shirt, as if he were clinging to the Russian for dear life.

***

After long minutes that seemed like hours, the cries of the soldier cradled to Ivan’s chest quieted into whimpers. He looked down at him, praying to whoever cared to listen. _Please don’t let him die here, please don’t let him die here…_ The American’s breathing was ragged; his consciousness numbed by both cold and sheer exhaustion.

“What is your name?” Ivan asked quietly, hoping he would get a response, but not entirely expecting one.

“A-Alfred…” the man moaned back, even quieter.

Ivan latched onto the small spark of life. “Do you have a wife back home in America?”

Alfred shook his head slowly. “N-no… I’m… I… no,” he managed.

Ivan stroked his thumb across Alfred’s cheek to warm it a bit. “Neither do I... I just have my babuska, and my two sisters.”

Alfred looked up at him for a moment. His eyes really were blue, bluer than Ivan had expected. “The only... person I have is... m-my little brother…” He groaned as he sat up a bit, gazing across the snow, as if looking for someone.

Ivan eased him back down; he collapsed back into the Russian’s chest. "...Was he the one you jumped in front of?”

The American nodded. “Y-yeah…”

“You’re brave,” Ivan said simply.

Alfred gave a pained chuckle. “...I’m stupid.”

“Net, ty ne,” Ivan whispered, not bothering with English. He rubbed light circles on the younger man’s back, pretending to not feel the blood soaking through the heavy coat still wrapped around him.

 _Perhaps if we’d met under different circumstances..._ he thought, _things could have been so very different, Alfred. I wish I could have met you anywhere else, anywhere but here. Fate is cruel, is she not?_

“...Y-you’re the b-brave one, Ivan...” The words came so softly that Ivan almost thought he imagined them.

 

***

 

By the time the fighting had stopped, the Americans had decided to cut their losses and retreat.

The other Russian soldiers crowded around Ivan, demanding to know why he risked so much just for a dying American kid.

Ivan attempted at shouting them away, clinging tightly to the figure in his coat that had stopped answering. Stopped crying.

Stopped breathing.

Tears flowed down his face, some of them freezing, some of them making streaks down his pale skin.

His cries were a mix of Russian and broken English, none of it making any real sense. His eyes were bloodshot and red from crying.

They had to pry him away from Alfred’s body.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Ok, thanks for reading! I’m quite honestly not sure where the hell this came from, as RusAme isn’t even a ship I primarily deal in; it just sort of jumped into my mind and I started typing. (I’m not pretending to actually know anything about war, so please have mercy. I just wanted to write something. ^-^ )  
> Translations:  
> “Babushka,” - “Grandmother,”  
> “Net, ty ne,” - “No, you’re not,”


End file.
